


and all your hurts, in my hands

by TigerMoon



Series: family is a four-letter word [7]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 05:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16469828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerMoon/pseuds/TigerMoon
Summary: There in the firelight, in the softness of the twilight and the trust―they take the first steps to healing.





	and all your hurts, in my hands

**Author's Note:**

> This story, like the rest in this series, addresses dark topics-please, _please_ mind the tags. It's highly suggested you read the rest of the fics in this series first, to fully understand what's going on, though it's not absolutely required.
> 
> Suggested soundtrack: [Tom Odell - Heal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVxdY4rWIlQ)

There’s silence between them as Ozpin tips another shot of whiskey into his glass. Just the tink of glass hitting glass, the soft crackling of the fireplace as the fire within settles down to smolder, and the omnipresent soft ticking of the gears a floor above. There have been nights Qrow has fallen asleep to those sounds on this very couch, leaned against the warmth of Ozpin’s side.

 

But now the ticking is ominous, somehow. A counter of tales and times long past.

 

Ozpin sets the decanter aside to sit on the edge of the couch, not quite an arm’s length away from Qrow. He hasn’t looked himself in months, not since _that night_. The fine lines around the corners of his dull amber eyes have deepened, cheeks grown a bit more hollow. The terrible burden of secrets should have been lifted when he’d spoken them, shown Qrow the scars, yet he seems more burdened than ever before. Tired. Almost ephemeral, in a way, because the facade is gone and he is revealed, a mere human where a god once stood.

 

In a small way―and he’s ashamed to admit it, even to himself―Qrow’s glad of it, even if it had to come at such a terrible cost.

 

As he watches, the older man rakes a hand through his mop of platinum hair, pulling lightly at the edges. He blows out a soft breath. “I thought this would be easier,” he finally murmurs.

 

Qrow pauses, his glass halfway to his lips, then takes a hard swallow of the whiskey before setting it aside. “Not going anywhere, Oz,” he says. A lopsided quirk of the lips crosses his face; he reaches out and brushes fingertips over the other’s knuckles. “Take your time.”

 

Those slim fingers wrap tightly around the more calloused ones, clinging. Ozpin chews on his lower lip for a second. “I’ve lived thousands of years, and yet only a few,” he begins, staring into the fire. “I have the memories of so many lives―how they lived, how they loved―that sometimes I can’t remember where the past ends and my own life begins. Sometimes I dream of them. Their fears, their hurts. Their deaths.” He pulls his glasses off with his free hand, tossing them onto the table, and runs a trembling hand down his face. For someone who’s lived so long, Qrow thinks, who has borne so much, he looks untouched by age. Young, almost heartbreakingly so, save for the ravages sorrow has inflicted over the years.

 

And yet his eyes are so ancient. So dim.

 

Ozpin untangles their hands to pick up his whiskey glass, condensation dripping down his wrist. “And yet,” he says, staring into the ice-flecked liquid, “I find that I’d rather relive those deaths a thousand times again than ever confront... this. What happened.” He runs his finger around the edge of the glass, drawing slow circles, and laughs tiredly. “Sounds rather pathetic, doesn’t it.”

 

“No,” Qrow says. “It sounds human.”

 

Tired amber eyes flicker up at those words. It’s been one of his biggest flaws, for as long as Qrow has known him―that Ozpin cannot let himself ascribe to the mere weaknesses that come with being human. At first he’d thought it was because of the powers he wielded, or the position he held. Now he wonders, as the silence stretches, if it wasn’t something more. Some _one_ more, perhaps, to have placed such an awful idea into his head.

 

He doesn’t push, though. For as much as everyone believes him to be a raucous drunk, he knows how to listen, and right now the silence is deafening.

 

Qrow shifts closer to Ozpin on the couch, just close enough that their knees are barely touching. “… you know it’s OK to be scared.”

 

It says a lot that the older man doesn’t even try to refute that. His shoulders fall; he almost shyly looks up to meet Qrow’s gaze. “I don’t even know how to _start_ ,” he admits.

 

He raises his hand and―waiting for permission―strokes a knuckle against the other’s cheek, just to push the hair away from his face. “Beginning’s always good,” Qrow says gently.

 

Ozpin swallows, hard, his eyes searching, before they fall to his lap. “… the beginning. All right.”

 

But he’s silent, at first. Twisting the whiskey glass around in his hands to hide the tremor; eyes closed tight against any scrutiny; chewing his lower lip until the skin’s peeled up at the edges. Qrow places a warm calloused hand on his shoulder, strokes it down his back, and Ozpin takes in a deep breath.

 

“My mother fell ill when I was very young….”

 

* * *

 

 

_Tip is ~~four~~ when his mother falls ill._

 

_Their home is tiny, a few rooms attached to the village’s meager excuse for an inn. Outside the kingdoms, ringed on one side by the River Fen and the blackthorn trees plentiful along the banks―the other side a well-worn traveler’s path between Vacuo and Vale, frequented by merchants and world-weary huntsmen. A step above bandits, perhaps, but only that._

 

_His father is a man of few words, towering tall and broad, heavy jaws and heavier scowls and a temper just waiting to flair at the slightest remark. He’s very strong and very brave―Mumma says so, and if she says it, it has to be true. Da’ usually smells of handrolled cigarettes and when he smells of the sloe gin made in the village Tip knows to make himself very, very small and very, very quiet._

 

_Sometimes he can’t, because he is_ stupidclumsyuseless _, and when he cries Da’ hits him,_ I’ll give you something to cry about _. And if the next day he wears bruises across his cheek he pretends he doesn’t hurt, because hurting only makes Mumma cry and that’s even worse somehow._

 

_His mother, oh, she is all slender limbs and delicate face, softness and smiles. She’s warmth and light, even when she too smells of ripe sloes and her eyes are heavy-lidded and words slurred. Mumma is so patient, so kind. She teaches him to count,_ one two three, good job! _, and on the rare nights he doesn’t have to help her to bed she tucks him in tight into his trundle_ against the Grimm, my little Tip, lest they carry you away for dinner―and who would I tell stories to then?

 

_But Mumma isn’t always happy. Mumma’s sick. Da’ calls her lazy, spoiled, awful words that make her cry when he’s off running the inn. Her limbs grow thinner, her skin pale as snow. Her breathing makes awful wheezy noises, especially at night, and sometimes she coughs until she throws up red and yellow, sick. Some nights after he cleans up her sick Tip crawls in bed with her and clings to her side as she sleeps._

 

_Tip is ~~five~~ when she dies._

 

* * *

 

_He is ~~five~~ years old when his father comes to his bed._

 

_Da’ is angry, all the time. Da’ stays in the inn for hours, working to feed him_ ungrateful little shit. _He learns to bundle linens in and out of the washer, to mop up messes barside, to to count to five so he can take traveler’s Lien when they come for alcohol. He tries very hard to be good for him like Mumma would have wanted._

 

_But it’s never good enough._

 

He’s _never good enough._

 

Useless! Stupid boy, look what you’ve done now!

 

_He wears bruises like a cat wears stripes, hidden under layers of clothing. Sometimes they show. Sometimes people look at him and their expressions go all funny before ushering their children away from him at the playground. He learns to lie when talking to his only friend, a little girl with scarlet hair and gapped teeth who sneaks out to swing with him early in the mornings. Tells her that he fell, or walked into the corner of a table, and when her mother pulls her home he doesn’t dare look at the woman’s face because she looks so sad and he doesn’t know what he did wrong to make her that way._

 

… _he does a lot of things wrong._

 

_But sometimes Da’ is nice to him. Sometimes he lets him have candies from the general store while the manager is watching, or lets him sit high in his lap and take sips of spiced wine when it’s cold and the wind rushes through the thin gaps in the walls. When it’s very cold he even gets to share the big bed with him, covered up in heavy blankets that still smell faintly of his mother._

 

_It’s warm, and safe, until―_

 

_Until―_

 

_Until cold hands, tearing at his nightshirt. Until whiskery lips, tasting of bitter sloes and cigars, press against his. He sobs into his mouth,_ Da’, no _, as those hands press him flat._

 

No _and hands slide over bare skin,_ stop _, and the sound of clothes rustling, heavy weight above him, sobbing_ no no no _until―_

 

_Until._

 

* * *

 

 

Ozpin’s shoulders shake. His voice falters, chokes, just the ticking of the gears and his own shuddering breaths breaking the silence. Those honeyed eyes stare out at the dying embers of the fire, crumpled at the edges, unblinking. Qrow shifts beside him and he draws tighter into himself, away from the other man, arms crossed over his stomach and head bowed.

 

“Well,” he says tightly. “You can guess how it ends.”

 

Qrow hesitates, sick to the very pits of his soul.Instead of answering, he takes hold of Ozpin’s free hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. Ozpin startles, then chokes, slapping his free hand across his mouth to muffle the violent sob tearing its way from his throat.

 

“I didn’t understand,” he breathes. The tears are coming now, small sparkles of moisture down porcelain cheeks. “I didn’t―I knew it was wrong, and I knew that it hurt, it hurt so much I wanted to _die_ , Qrow, but I didn’t―I still don’t _understand_ _―!_ ”

 

Qrow holds on to that slim hand, running his fingers over the bony knuckles. Ozpin’s skin is cool against his own, wetness dripping down to splash over them. “Let it go, Oz,” Qrow murmurs. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

 

There’s nothing else he can say―because what? What understanding can there be in this? There were so many that could have stopped this. The townsfolk who’d seen him being mistreated. The king, that useless old wizard, come onto a child too young to understand what was being taken from him. A mother who could have held on longer. All of whom could have stopped it, all of whom might could have answered this, but he is who is left behind. Just a tattered old crow with empty platitudes and no answers.

 

Why would anyone _wan_ t to understand, why a man would take his own child and break him? Again, and again, and―

 

No. There is no understanding to be had. Not here.

 

The embers of the fire pop quietly behind them as he weeps. It’s quiet, but not an awkward quiet. Silence to let the story settle, perhaps. To let the horrors wash through. This time when Qrow moves closer Ozpin sinks into the curve of his side and lets him slide his arm across his shoulders.

 

It’s horrible. It’s horrible, and painful, and yet there’s something unspoken here that eludes him. A trust that goes beyond camaraderie, beyond lovers. It’s easy to share the joys. It’s easy, comparatively, to share magic, the world and its secrets. But to share this, to let someone examine the cracks and shame in one’s soul, speaks an intimacy beyond that.

 

Beside him, Ozpin takes a long, shivery breath and slumps a bit further against him. There’s an answer here, Qrow thinks, in the trust and quiet. In the way Ozpin traces his fingers over his hand, trusting him to be close even when the specter of pain is hot on his skin. In the way that he speaks, casting aside centuries of secrecy and doublespeak to come to him, so plainly.

 

In the way that Ozpin treats Qrow as _safe_.

 

There’s a soft sigh beside him, Ozpin uncurling a bit to stare into the firelight. Qrow can just barely see it, deep bourbon eyes red-rimmed and shadowed―but there’s release there too, in the lessening of lines about his face and how he lets the exhaustion draw him down.

 

It’s a path to healing, this first step.

 

“… thank you, Qrow.”

 

And it’s a path he’s willing to walk to the end.

 

“Anytime,” he says gently. “I’ll be right here. I promise.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Love or hate, please let me know what you thought!


End file.
